Southampton, Queen of the Press Age
11th of November 2019, Southampton are 19th in the Premier League table after managing only eight points in their first twelve games. No wins on their ground, a humiliating 9–0 loss to Leicester City and people are starting to question Ralph Hasenhuettl.
Any average Premier League fan would have told you that the sack is coming. Even the devoted ones would have told you that the performance isn’t a saving grace.
13th of January 2020, Southampton are currently 12th in the table, set-pieces galore with James Ward-Prowse, Danny Ings is the legaue’s in form striker only 3 goals behind the top-scorer and the Saints have beaten Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and Leicester City. Is Hasenhuettl, with his villain-like gloves, holding the league’s executives hostage ? What is happening at St. Mary’s ? and more importantly who’s that team in red and white ?
Questions, questions. Many of them to answer but the Saints fans don’t care. Their eyes have missed something as good as this. Hasenhuettl has begun the revolution.
After the Everton game, the Austrian ditched the 3–4–3 and returned to his 4–4–2. The pressing improved, it appears as if it’s chaos but the press is coordinated to force the opponent into unfavorable positions and decisions. Wing-play was no more haphazard with both full backs flying without coverage. The front line rotated positions smoothly that you couldn’t predict who’s going to pop up where. The Saints were redeemed
It’s easy to sweet-talk the situation but how do they do it ?
Pressing
The concept of pressing is simple, you run at the opponent when he has the ball. Easy right ? Well, not that easy. In a high level game such as the Premier League a late or wrong run could exploit your whole shape opening gaps for the opponents to penetrate or bypass you easily. Resulting in you getting thumped. So it takes hours and hours on the training ground to perfect a coherent pressing scheme.
Southampton’ pressing scheme focuses on forcing their opponents out wide by making angled runs first then once the opponent is by the touchline, the Saints pounce. All with coverage, never forget the coverage !
Southmapton’s front-line forced Aston Villa here to go wide. Even before Marvelous Nakamba controls the ball you can see Cedric Soares sprinting straight at him. The Portuguese right back isn’t afraid of a pass behind him or him leaving his position because he knows that Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg is going to cover his position.
A feature of Southampton’s pressing scheme is that after forcing the opponent out wide the winger and full back press intensively while the near midfielder drops to cover. Cedric manages to intercept the ball and stop Aston Villa from building an attack.
This concept tricks the opponent into thinking that it’s easy to attack the space behind the full back but in reality it’s covered. Against Norwich City the situation presented itself again and with Ings assisting it becomes a 3 v 2. But even without Ings, the 2 v 2 is very aggressive from Southampton’s side as they know there’s coverage.
Ben Godfrey tries to play a ball behind Cedric, but again like the example in the Villa game Hojbjerg is there to head the ball.
Ward-Prowse’s positioning here gives Ryan Bertrand the complete freedom to go out and harry Max Aarons.
The logical question that comes to mind is about the gap in Southampton’s midfield now with the midfielders covering the full backs. In Hasenhuettl’s manifesto the ball far winger moves inside the field when there’s a press occurring on the other side. An example here is Moussa Djenepo, the right winger, moving inside the field to virtually act as a third midfielder. His presence fills the void and denies Norwich a pass into the space for Alex Tettey.
The ball far winger’s role in pressing isn’t only for coverage though. He also acts as a weapon to start an offensive transition. While Southampton are smothering Newcastle on the near side, Nathan Redmond is positioned centrally rather than near Javier Manquillo the Newcastle right wing-back.
Redmond anticipates the back pass and his positioning inside the field allows him to reach the ball first to start an offensive transition.
He goes past Federico Fernandez and only an excellent save from Martin Dubravka stopped him from opening the scoring.
Another example is from a throw-in in the Leicester City game. Stuart Armstrong who’s playing as a right winger is deep inside sniffing for any mistakes.
Hamza Choudhury’s poor header presents an opportunity for Armstrong to pounce. The latter’s position inside the field forced Choudhury into the mistake and allowed Armstrong to be in a position to take advantage.
The offensive transition started and Shane Long quickly darted into space to present himself as a passing option.
Armstrong found Long with a through ball to put him in a position to score. Unfortunately, Long was slightly offside meaning that the penalty he got was reverted.
Southampton’s ball far winger keeps popping into midfield to fill in the gap resulting from the pressing scheme, but more importantly he’s proactive by being alert to balls he could collect or intercept. Here, after Bertrand — out of the picture — presses Serge Aurier with Ward-Prowse covering, Armstrong is inside the field acting as the third midfielder to collect.
He doesn’t collect only once, but twice !
Putting Redmond in a good 1 v 1 situation while also continuing his run outside of Aurier to prevent the Spurs right back from doubling up against Redmond.
Redmond breaks Toby Alderweireld’s ankles dribbling outside then inside but the masterpiece ended here as his shot was straight down the middle.
Southampton’s wing oriented pressing scheme operates smoothly with coverage from the near midfielder and ball far winger who fills the gap in midfield left by the near midfielder going out to cover for the aggressive full back. This pressing scheme denies the opponent the options of progressing down the line, exploiting the space behind the full back or even exploiting the space centrally.
Rotational Attackers
The next feature of this Southampton side is the front four’s understatement of the concept of space and occupying it. Freeing a pocket for another player to attack, or even attacking an open space. The main thing though is that there’s always two players centrally in the attacking line.
Ings who is wide in this snippet is leaving Long alone centrally. However, Redmond the ball far winger notices that and rather than being way far wide is in a good position to support.
The positioning of Armstrong and Ings allows for a 1–3 combination to put Jack Stephens through.
Armstrong then finds Stephens with a through ball and Redmond slowly starts his late run.
Here, Southampton have two players central one providing the option of a cut back (Redmond) while the other providing the option for a cross (Long).
Stephens takes the third option of dribbling into the box, yet here he still has the other two options. A short pass to Long or a cutback to Redmond. He goes with the first and Long’s shot is saved. Redmond’s central position provided Stephens with two options throughout the attack. A position he occupied because Ings was out wide.
Hojbjerg and Ward-Prowse don’t only support the full backs in the pressing scheme. They also act as quarter-backs out wide due to their passing abilities supporting the build up on the wings. Ings here calls for the ball wide behind Sam Byram
His movement attracts Byram and frees Djenepo who now can attack the center space which Ings left. Hojbjerg meanwhile finds the Malian easily
Djenepo moves inside while having the option of Ings wide who’s now acting as the right winger.
Godfrey is too far to come out and defend Djenepo’s shot which shades the top of the bar.
The understanding of the rotation is smooth between the front four, moving to allow others to be in a better position and still maintaining the presence of two players centrally.
Long who’s returning from an offside position is found by Ings. Whilst Redmond, the left winger, is darting into the space between Johnny Evans and Ben Chilwell technically switching roles with Long.
Redmond’s run drags Chilwell inside leaving Armstrong free out wide.
Long finds Armstrong with a cross field pass assisted by Ward-Prowse’s dummy which made Chilwell more hesitant. The time Armstrong had allowed him to control the ball and adjust his body for a shot which was deflected into the net to make it 1–1 at the King Power.
Cedric and Bertrand’s crossing abilities gives them an edge as Southampton don’t have to rely only on their wingers to cross for the duo inside the box. With Ings dropping to help and rotational movement meaning that Armstrong has to be inside the box comes the role of Cedric to put a cross in the box.
Southampton always have a minimum of two players centrally inside the box. Armstrong here goes central instead of running behind Ryan Sessegnon.
Now with two players going to the center of the box Cedric is triggered to cross.
His cross finds Redmond but the attack isn’t converted as Redmond’s shot goes way over the bar.
The Chelsea game illustrated the best of these rotational movements. Michael Obafemi who’s partnering Che Adams upfront drifts out wide to the right leaving Adams alone centrally. Armstrong accordingly goes central
Redmond links with Armstrong and makes a run into the box. The quartet holds, attacking as four with Adams and Armstrong central.
Armstrong then finds Redmond with a pass and the English winger is now on goal.
If Redmond’s finishing was as good as Ings’, Southampton would have scored 4 or 5 goals more throughout this run. Unfortunately again he can’t find the back of the net to end a brilliant move which encapsulated the idea of the rotational attackers.
The cherry on top was Southampton’s 2nd against Chelsea. Described beautifully as a three part magic trick by Carl Anka, the rotational movement paid dividends. Ings who replaced Obafemi slowly moved wide freeing a slot centrally.
A quick one-two with Armstrong then puts the latter in that exact slot centrally which Ings vacated.
Now central of the front four is Armstrong and Adams with the Chelsea players trying to recover.
The fifteen passes move was slightly spoiled by Kante who made the final pass to Redmond by mistake. It didn’t change the beauty of the move however.
Redmond who has only been missing finally scored putting the ball over Kepa Arrizabalaga and into the back of the net. A beauty of a goal which still holds an offensive idea. The rotational movement.
Wing-Play
Ward-Prowse and Hojbjerg’s covering and assistance in the build up acts as the catalyst to Southampton’s wing-play. Whether in terms of the wing oriented press or the enablement of build up. However, the covering isn’t only in the pressing phase. The midfield duo also drops to cover for the full back when they overlap.
Cedric who’s currently out wide has acres of space behind him and when Djenepo tries to dribble inside the pitch he loses the ball.
Ward-Prowse covering for Cedric is in the correct position and retrieves the ball to restart the attack again by playing Cedric out wide.
Again Ward-Prowse is in prime position for any interceptions from Aston Villa. His presence in that position allows Bertrand to dart forward into the space between Villa’s right back and right center-back.
Redmond plays Bertrand through and with the presence of Long and Ings inside the six yard box Villa are in trouble.
Bertrand’s cross is excellent and falls on Long’s head but the Irish striker puts it over the bar. This move re-occurs regularly throughout any Southampton game
In the same game it’s Hojbjerg starting the attack from the left back zone while Bertrand is sprinting forward.
Nakamba can’t match Bertrand for pace and with the Ings-Long combination pinning Villa’s center backs, the center-backs can’t go out and help.
Bjorn Engels is eventually forced to leave his position after Redmond plays the ball in the space Bertrand was attacking.
Luckily for Villa, Nakamba recovers and the cross is intercepted into a corner kick. A corner kick which was Southampton’s 2nd goal in the game.
Another example can be seen in the Norwich game. Ward-Prowse filling the right back zone allows Cedric to sprint forward and provide the wing play.
Long goes wide to collect. All the meanwhile, Cedric is moving forward like a tractor.
The Portuguese right back overlaps as Godfrey can only see the number on Cedric’s shirt.
Here the rotational movement should have been better. Redmond who’s out of the picture should have been more central to provide further options for Cedric. But it’s the 80th minute of the game and the Saints have probably run of out gas.
Watching Southampton’s recent performances it’s easy to see why they climbed from 19th place all the way to 12th. The three ideas presented here are only complemented by the exquisiteness of Ward-Prowse’s set piece delivery and Ings’ finishing.
American rock might got Queens of the Stone Age, but the Premier League has got Queen of the Press Age.
